The events of May 1886 that took place in Chicago are a turning point in the history of the revolutionary labor movement.

It was not only the fight of the workers to reduce working hours to eight hours daily that featured in this fight and led to the global fight of the proletariat for an 8 hour work day, but it was also a response of the workers to a crackdown by the bosses, and the murder of workers at the McCormick factory. This response was “Workers in arms” which called for a reaction of the working class to the killings of the bosses. It was the armed reaction of the workers when police ordered the dissolution of the Hay Market Square protest that was called against the killings of the strikers at the McCormick factory. The armed tradition of the working class and revolutionary movement was at that time closely related to unionism and the struggle for an 8 hour work day, better working conditions, wage increases, social security. And all this was seen to some extent, as a stage on the way to the abolition of the capitalist system.

Such struggles, which were inspired by the events of May 1886 in Chicago erupted in many countries over the next few years in France, in Italy, Spain, Russia, Mexico, Argentina and they were characterized by the use of armed violence on the part of workers.

Unfortunately a large part of the labor movement adopted an approach that considered armed practices as “provocation” and practices of “individual terrorism” that harm the labor movement and were therefore condemnable. There is the view, for example, that the events of the Hay Market Square with the throwing of a bomb and the armed scuffle against the police that followed were an intentional provocation to justify the murder of several of the assembled workers, but also the conviction and execution by hanging of the organizers of the Hay Market Square protest. (more…)

After seven years of crisis the precarious pride has become rage and indignation against the burgeoning unemployment and the growth of poverty imposed by BCE & IMF to most of the population with austerity policies, particularly in Italy, Greece and the rest of the Latin Europe. Social slaughter, plunder of wealth and common goods, the end of the public city are the bases upon which governments build their response to the economic crisis.

The whole urban environment is the heart of many overwhelming social tensions. It is dominated by profit-based logics, soil consumption, the speculative spiral and the showcase city formula, in which the territorial branding is everything and inhabitants needs count as nothing, which leads to environmental exploitation, militarization of life, as we see in Val Susa, attack against our city back streets.

Italy deeply suffers precariousness, exploitation, repression. Corresponds to our need of places for political activism and criticism their evacuation and closure. (more…)

On Mayday 2014 Anarchist Action Network is calling for anarchists to unite in One Common Struggle. We are calling on you to join fellow anarchists and remember the victims of the system’s oppression, take action against the symbols of the state and capitalism and hold events highlighting the need to struggle for a better world.

May Day was first celebrated as a day of international workers’ solidarity in 1890. It was called to commemorate the murder of four anarchist workers in Chicago by the US government.

On this May day in 2014 let us unite our struggles in looking back to the Anarchist origins of May Day and take action in memory of all who are dying every day at the hands of the capitalist system. Let us also remember those who have died or been imprisoned fighting it. From the Mayday Anarchists in Chicago to Carlo, the young man executed by police at the 2001 Genoa summit against the G8. Right now in the UK there is an all out assault on activists involved in the animal rights movement, one of whom was sentenced today to a 6 year prison sentence for ‘conspiring to blackmail’ Huntingdon Life Sciences. Dozens more AR activists are facing political trials in the UK as the law continues to be used to protect corporate power against public anger. For more details see here. Mayday is a time to show our solidarity against a system that kills and imprisons in order to keep us in chains. (more…)

Dark Nights is an anarchist & anti-prison PDF freesheet of resistance reports and repression news to download and print out.

Two part special issue for May 2011. Four pages of UK news with an eight page European Social Struggle supplement / A3 size.

#11 : Anti-System Conflict in the United KingdomThis issue carries news about the increase in subversive action across the UK and the recent repression wave against squats and autonomous social centres in the wake of the March 26th TUC Demo / Black rzocoruse.com Bloc. Also covers Telepathic Heights eviction, Stokes Croft riots etc.

#12 : European Social Struggle – May SupplementThe longer supplement has a combative Mayday report from Barcelona, a small contribution on the topic of Solidarity by the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire in Greece, and the call for an escalated struggle against Genetic Manipulation by Swiss eco-anarchist prisoners, who are on hunger strike May 1 to 28, in Switzerland (Billy, Marco, Silvia and Costas).